Laura > Laura's Quotes

“Ze zei eens: 'Je kunt dicht bij elkaar liggen en ver van elkaar verwijderd zijn.”
― Bart Moeyaert, Het hele leven

“I'm nothing but air and wind. I'm part of the blizzard.”
― Tove Jansson, Moominland Midwinter

“You can't ever be really free if you admire somebody too much.”
― Tove Jansson, Tales from Moominvalley

“All things are so very uncertain, and that's exactly what makes me feel reassured.”
― Tove Jansson, Moominland Midwinter

“You must go on a long journey before you can really find out how wonderful home is.”
― Tove Jansson, Comet in Moominland

“Smell is important. It reminds a person of all the things he's been through; it is a sheath of memories and security.”
― Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

“Een paar schoven de schaduw in om daar te gaan verdwalen.”
― Bart Moeyaert, Het hele leven

“Ze streek met haar grote teen door de modder en zei: 'En dan te weten dat in zulke drab de waterlelies wortelen. Is dat niet geweldig?”
― Bart Moeyaert, Het hele leven

“There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.”
― Leonard Cohen, Selected Poems, 1956-1968

“I don't think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“Niets heeft ons bedoeld of gewild of bedacht. Niets maakt ons noodzakelijk. Anders dan veel mensen vind ik dat een verrukkelijk, bevrijdend inzicht. We kunnen doen en laten wat we willen en zijn aldus werkelijk vrij, niet gebonden aan heilsplan of bestemming.”
― Sander Kollaard, Uit het leven van een hond

“Want zie je, Mia, het is niet eten en drinken dat ons in leven houdt, maat levenslust, de morele overtuiging dat het de moeite waard is, dat er waarheid en schoonheid ligt in het leven zelf, altijd en overal, maar dat het aan ons is om dat op te zoeken, te delven, als gelukszoekers, in de beste betekenis van dat woord...”
― Sander Kollaard, Uit het leven van een hond

“Om je heen komt alles tot rust, elk van ons gaat zijn eigen weg, maar we ontmoetten elkaar weer aan zee bij een kalme zonsondergang.”
― Tove Jansson

“It is simply this: do not tire, never lose interest, never grow indifferent—lose your invaluable curiosity and you let yourself die. It's as simple as that.”
― Tove Jansson, Fair Play

“There are empty spaces that must be respected – those often long periods when a person can’t see the pictures or find the words and needs to be left alone.”
― Tove Jansson, Fair Play

“Er zijn leemtes die je moet respecteren; de vaak lange periodes waarin je het hele beeld niet ziet, de woorden niet kunt vinden en met rust gelaten moet kunnen worden.”
― Tove Jansson, Fair Play

“Je moet dingen nooit herhalen. Dat zou een verkeerd einde zijn.”
― Tove Jansson, Fair Play

“..., een spannende gedachte begon vorm te krijgen; de mogelijkheid om alleen te zijn, helemaal in je eentje, in alle rust en vol verwachting, bijna een soort dwaasheid die je je kunt permitteren wanneer je gezegend bent met liefde.”
― Tove Jansson, Fair Play

“The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“There is a blessing in losing the one we love. It's the blessing of self-transformation. You don't have to who you were anymore. You've struggled. And now you can change. It doesn't mean that bits of that person won't cling to you, they will throughout your life, but they are now subsumed into something greater. That person has given you, in fact, the most important blessing, which is they gave you the blessing of transforming your soul into
something better, something more beautiful.”
― Emma Forrest, Your Voice in My Head

“I want everything with you, America. I want the holidays and the birthdays, the busy season and lazy weekends. I want peanut butter fingertips on my desk. I want inside jokes and fights and everything. I want a life with you.”
― Kiera Cass, The One

“You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”
― Rosemarie Urquico

“Life, a good life, a great life is about "Why not?" May we never forget it.”
― Danielle Steel, Happy Birthday

“Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...It's about learning to dance in the rain.”
― Vivian Greene

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth.”
― William W. Purkey

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

“Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.”
― Allen Saunders

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
― Albert Einstein

“If you don't know where you're going, any road'll take you there”
― George Harrison